Oversized lifters

[TopBanana]

So I dove into a cam swap project on the poly 318 in my 65 Coronet over the Christmas holiday. When I got the top and front of the motor torn apart, and was ready to pull the cam, I noticed a diamond stamped in to the right deck on the block. To make a really long story short, it means that this motor has .008" over-sized lifters in it!!! And not all of mine are O/S, just 3!!! Talk about a pain in the a$$! After calling every cam & lifter company I could find, most of the people had never heard of such a thing & of course nobody had any O/S lifters. I got turned onto a place called Valve Train Industries in Canada...they actually had 8 of them...only problem is they are $46 each!!! Regular sized price is $2.40 ea!! Luckily they could refurb my old ones. Only problem there was it took 3 weeks to get them there and back!

So they arrived this last Tuesday, and I'll be putting the motor back together tonight. FINALLY!!! It's never a dull moment when you're working on old Mopars!

 

[Commando V8]

Thats rotten luck, good thing you checked the markings, could have been worse!

 

[69 Runner]

Ok...I'll bite. Just how do they refurbish a lifter?

 

[GTXperience]

Ever consider bushing the lifter holes? Granted, there is a cost there but you do get to use brand new lifters. ;)

 

[evanbrendel]

i noticed my 440 cast crank motor has .010 under crank factory for some reason...

 

[Meep-Meep]

It's nice to know that someone actually has some OS lifters. $400.00 is still cheaper than the alternatives.

Resurfacing lifters was common (and still may be) for air cooled VW's. They just regrind the convex surface and hopefully re heat treat it.

 

[TopBanana]

...They just regrind the convex surface and hopefully re heat treat it.

You got it...they regrind the face, and re-harden it. I actually found 2 other places in the US that to it too...Elgin cams was one and the other was Oregon Cam Grinding? I think. All the prices were comparable...~$5 each lifter.

Unfortunately sleeving the bores would 1. be prohibitively expensive for this project...(this was just supposed to be a quick, cheap cam & intake swap) and 2. would mean I would have to tear the motor out, apart, and rebuild it...(see reasoning for #1).

I got the intake on Friday night, but the timing cover was fighting me for some reason. It's been ~15 years since I've been this far into a motor this far, so I had to re-learn some of the do's and don't again. I'll get it on round 2.

Commando V8 - Yes...it's a good thing I got finished up that night and just stood there and looked the motor over for a few minutes, saw the mark, and said to myself "hmm, I wonder what the hell THAT means?" I would have had all kinds of valve train noise and then been REALLY pissed!!!

I'll keep you all posted on how this thing does after I get it back together. Speaking of which, anyone have a ~65 vintage rebuildable AFB they want to get rid of? I want to run a stock looking air cleaner and the 65 is carbs had a smaller throat.

 

[69 Runner]

Since grinding on the lifters will make them SHORTER than stock, have you thought to check your preload?

 

[markmopar]

poly lifters are solid, no preload.

 

[69 Runner]

whatever you say

 

[markmopar]

Are you saying I'm wrong? I'm not.
All polys are solid lifter engines and do not have a preload on the lifter, they have a lash spec at the rockers. As long as the lash is right everything will be fine. I would examine the rockers are the valve tip after the lash is set to be sure the rocker tip is centered over the valve. If it isn't, longer pushrods would be needed to compensate for the shorter lifter(not likely in this case).

 

[69 Runner]

whatever you say

 

[rolling_Thunder]

Hmmmm.....

 

[69 Runner]

Kinda in my face considering I didn't say anything....isn't he

 

[markmopar]

Nope, not in your face. I just asked a question. Your reply was vague, so I wanted to clarify.